Switching regulators are used in a variety of applications to provide controlled DC output power by converting a DC input voltage. In automotive, industrial and aviation applications, a battery and alternator combination often provides the DC input voltage to a DC bus to power the DC-DC switching converter. In many automotive examples, the DC bus voltage ranges from 8-16 V, and buck DC-DC converters are used to provide 3.3 V or 5.0 V outputs to power motor control and other circuitry. However, high input voltage transient conditions may occur, for example, if the battery is disconnected, leading to a voltage rise on the DC bus. In this situation, the buck DC-DC converter high and low side switching devices may need to block voltages as high as 40 V or more during the high input voltage transient event. Accordingly, buck DC-DC converters used to supply 3.3-5.0 V outputs from 8-16 V inputs are designed with high and low side driver components capable of blocking 40 V. This leads to higher on-state resistance (e.g., FET RDSON) and switch capacitance due to higher rated devices. This results in increased on-state conduction and switching loss in normal operation due to the oversizing of the high and low side switches to accommodate the high input voltage transient possibility.